At the dawn of a new age of war Germans Nebelkrähe have released a new album focusing on the ephemeral character of life and the fact that nothing lasts forever and everything can be over in the blink of an eye. Nebelkrähe (engl.: hooded crow) are a longstanding band from Munich and ephemer is their third long player, following Lebensweisen which was released as far back as 2013. This is my first encounter with the band. The genre tag on their bandcamp page says “innovative black metal”, and while there naturally is no such genre, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and agree that this is what they are playing.
A first glance proves them to be quite convincing. Even if you don’t know any German and are not able to understand the poetic lyrics, the dramatic music together with singer Umbra’s croaky-screechy vocal performance and the video to the central track Nielandsmann, song number two on the album, will transport the message: war is senseless and the individual soldier is nothing more than cannon fodder. The experience of war, the song is saying, will leave you lost, literally and figuratively, questioning everything, and in the end – dead.
The album’s sound mixture is put together mainly from the black metal template, but with an addition of wind instruments, as well as accordion, harmonica and cello. The French band Pensées Nocturnes comes to mind, although Nebelkrähe sounds way less deranged and less drunk. Rammstein is another reference that cannot be avoided, since some song passages could also be a part of a Rammstein song. This is especially true for the first parts of the title track Ephemer which reminds me a lot of Rammstein’s Engel. Apart from that, what I also hear, and what I like a lot, is German emo and hardcore from the 2000s.
Regarding instrumentation, the sounds of trombone and trumpet do surprise and are highly effective in creating a theatre/cabaret atmosphere which is additionally enhanced by the band’s grotesque/clownish appearance on band photos. Also, trumpet and trombone draw a nice connection to traditional music from Bavaria, the bands region of origin, and this is always a plus with me. Although not really new since Pensées Nocturnes have done it before, the most impressive passages on the album include a combination of double-kick, machine-gun-like drumming, a sad melody played out on the trombone and brutal vocals.
From the middle onwards, the album has occasional excursions into the realms of pop music including clean vocals and a few kitschy, sweet tunes. One example of this can be heard in Dornbusch (im Norden kein Westen), another one in the closing track Die Standbar Von Scheria. While this might be part of the theatre/cabaret concept, it did not sit well with me, since I feel that these passages are watering down the initial extremeness and interrupting the flow. I can’t help but think that the album might have been more concise, more powerful without these elements. Still, I enjoyed ephemer and especially the album’s first two songs.
(7/10 Slavica)
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